Colin Firth Boards 'Theory of Everything' Director's Yacht Drama

The upcoming film will be sold in Berlin by StudioCanal.

Colin Firth is set to take the lead in an upcoming project charting a British businessman and amateur sailor's failed real-life attempt to win a round-the-world yacht race.

The Theory of Everything director James Marsh, who already has an Oscar for documentary Man on Wire, will helm the title, announced Tuesday by Blueprint Pictures and BBC Films. The film is being sold internationally in Berlin by StudioCanal.

Firth will play Donald Crowhurst, who in 1968 took part in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race only to soon find he lacked the experience necessary to complete the round-the-world voyage. His boat was eventually found abandoned, with Crowhurst assumed to have jumped overboard and drowned.

Writer-director Scott Z. Burns has penned the screenplay, which is believed to be based on the 2006 documentary Deep Water. Burns will produce alongside Pete Czernin and Graham Broadbent oftheLondon-based Blueprint and Nicholas Mauvernay and Jacques Perrin of French production house Galatee Films. The project was developed by Christine Langan from BBC Films and StudioCanal.